Was anyone else disappointed with the A1200?

[Dunny]

Ok guys but I still haven't had a satisfying answer to my question: Why does my enjoying Frontier in 1994 mean that Commodore went bankrupt?

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Why does my enjoying Frontier in 1994 mean that Commodore went bankrupt?

Who the hell thinks that?

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Thorham

Who the hell thinks that?

Hammer does, but I'm not sure why: https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3683

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Ok guys but I still haven't had a satisfying answer to my question: Why does my enjoying Frontier in 1994 mean that Commodore went bankrupt?

Simple.

Because you enjoyed Frontier on the A1200, an under-powered system that was no competition to the PC or game consoles, Commodore thought they could get away with not making it as powerful as it should be. By settling for less you forced other Amiga fans to jump ship to the PC because they knew Commodore wouldn't make what they wanted when people like you with low expectations would buy any old rubbish. But there weren't enough people like you to generate the sales they needed to survive... so you killed Commodore!

You and Irving Gould, who had the gall to expect a nice income from the billion dollar business he had been pouring money into since 1966. You know everything you spent on the Amiga went straight into his pocket, right? As if that's what businesses are for, not curing Amiga fans of their PC envy.

I tell you, Gould has a lot to answer for. I poured my heart and soul into the Amiga - telling everyone how great it was and pirating everything I could helping fans into the hobby, and all I got for it was this lousy A1200. To make matters worse we now have a 188 page long thread where people insist they weren't disappointed with it. Such lies have to be countered with facts!

[Promilus]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Simple.
Commodore thought they could get away with not making it as powerful as it should be.

Well they didn't get away with that, exactly because of that, it doesn't really matter how much did you enjoy actual A1200 if it was fairly simple to make it much better with acceptable cost increase. Which was already covered on those 188 pages. And along with other bad business decisions it indeed led to the downfall of the company. So...

FYI - business like that cannot run on fan sentiment only... especially when fanbase is rapidly shrinking.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Hammer does, but I'm not sure why: https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...postcount=3683

I read the link... I do not know what the cost difference would be

As I already wrote... AGA was too little too late

Something like A1200 1-2 years earlier, f.e. 1990, would have made a difference... perhaps

and no A600.. then Commodore would have survived longer

but if you look at that time from today, as I already wrote, only Apple survived and even Apple only with a big investment by Microsoft. All other platforms disappeared from the market. So whatever Commodore did the chance to survive would be small, at least as a independent hardware manfacturer.

[TEG]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

but if you look at that time from today, as I already wrote, only Apple survived and even Apple only with a big investment by Microsoft. All other platforms disappeared from the market. So whatever Commodore did the chance to survive would be small, at least as a independent hardware manfacturer.

It's a black and white reading of the history.

Jobs said Apple had the necessary money to survived without Microsoft fund. What really saved them was the success of the iMac, a product appreciated by the market, and so innovation and so Jobs vision. Commodore last right vision was the A500 but Gould fired the guy who made it possible (Rattigan).

Microsoft Saved Apple - The Biggest Myth in Tech History
[ Show youtube player ]

[TCD]

Originally Posted by TEG

Microsoft Saved Apple - The Biggest Myth in Tech History
[ Show youtube player ]

Thank you for posting it. It's amazing how persistent this one is.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by TEG

Jobs said Apple had the necessary money to survived without Microsoft fund. What really saved them was the success of the iMac, a product appreciated by the market, and so innovation and so Jobs vision.

https://www.wired.com/2009/08/dayintech-0806/

While another suitor or White Knight may have emerged instead, the Microsoft deal provided a number of things: a cash cushion, the neutralization of Apple's chief tormentor, continued independence and — perhaps most important — a way for Jobs to make his Phoenix-like return and assemble the small inner circle that still runs everything at One Infinite Loop.
And without the alignment of these particular stars it is anyone's guess if the iRevolution – iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone – would have ever happened.

I can find a video on youtube about pretty much every established fact being untrue, but it doesn't make it so.

[TCD]

The myth is that it was an 'investment'. It was part of a settlement because MS stole Apple code.

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by TEG

It's a black and white reading of the history.

Jobs said Apple had the necessary money to survived without Microsoft fund. What really saved them was the success of the iMac, a product appreciated by the market, and so innovation and so Jobs vision. Commodore last right vision was the A500 but Gould fired the guy who made it possible (Rattigan).

Microsoft Saved Apple - The Biggest Myth in Tech History
[ Show youtube player ]

Why took Jobs the money from Bill Gates? I do not believe him just one word

[OlafSch]

Originally Posted by TCD

The myth is that it was an 'investment'. It was part of a settlement because MS stole Apple code.

More important MS stole ideas. The money was not to help apple but to help MS because they were in trouble because of the monopol they had in the market and politics threatened them to split the company.

[oscar_ates]

Commodore after Rattigan did not make any innovation indeed. I believe if UK managers could buy commodore instead of Escom, Amiga had a chance because David Pleasence had some vision/ideas instead of visionless people sitting on Amiga like Gould, Ali, Escom amiga manager

[TEG]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I can find a video on youtube about pretty much every established fact being untrue, but it doesn't make it so.

This is not "a video", this a demonstration in the form of a video. You should have more respect for the person who did the research. And don't forget, article in press can suck up for masters.

My point is that with bad products and no vision, a bunch of money can't save you, just postpone the deadline.

The true is that we will never know what happened in the alternative timeline where Apple did not received the fund. Perhaps Jobs manage to find it elsewhere or Apple really die due to no having MSoffice on its machine or it does not become as powerful as we know it today or nothing change. We just don't know.

[TEG]

Originally Posted by OlafSch

Why took Jobs the money from Bill Gates? I do not believe him just one word

He was not mad! You have an opportunity you use it!

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by TEG

My point is that with bad products and no vision, a bunch of money can't save you, just postpone the deadline.

My 2 cents are - Jobs "visionariesy" seem to be largely overestimated...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by pandy71

My 2 cents are - Jobs "visionariesy" seem to be largely overestimated...

You would be wrong about that. Without his vision Apple was nothing.

But successful innovation doesn't just need vision, it also needs practical implementation. The job of engineers is to provide that. Apple's problem was that Jobs insisted on his vision being implemented verbatim even when it wasn't practical. Commodore's problem was letting the engineers be visionaries and then just going with whatever they came up with.

Both approaches are hazardous. Commodore had multiple pet projects on the boil and as each one became ready they were supposed to market it, regardless of what the actual market was for it. But they couldn't afford to do that. Furthermore their marketing was often over-priced and ineffective due to the advertising companies not understanding the product (and/or just being plain incompetent).

By the time Commodore got a manager onboard who had the vision they needed, things were pretty dire and his options were limited. The A1200 was as good a result as could be expected under the circumstances - just a pity it wasn't implemented earlier when the company wasn't in such dire straits.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by TEG

This is not "a video", this a demonstration in the form of a video. You should have more respect for the person who did the research. And don't forget, article in press can suck up for masters.

Oh, please A video is a video. And if press such as Wired (biggest Apple fanboi ever and AppleInsider (what it says on the tin) talk about investment and resucing, than I'll take their word for it. Hell, I'll take Jobs's word too when he talks about MS "helping" them. Of course, it's well known that MS did not do it entirely out of goodness of their heart, it was a rather complex situation, but the fact remains.

Originally Posted by TEG

My point is that with bad products and no vision, a bunch of money can't save you, just postpone the deadline.

You can have all the great products and vision you like, but when your company is bankrupt they won't help you much.

@OlafSch What's that about MS stealing ideas? Are you sure no other big corporation did it before?

https://dottech.org/wp-content/uploa...nfographic.jpg

After the MS deal, Apple hit the paydirt with iPod - if that did not happen, maybe they'd be still only puttering along, with iMacs enjoying a few percent market share like in the beginning. And iPod was hardly "visionary" - it was a friggin' MP3 player, with a terrible software (and rather bland looking, if you ask me). It managed to start a craze because people could finally have a status-symbol gadget which was overpriced but still affordable for the masses. And most importantly it could be carried anywhere and shown to everybody.

[hammer]

Originally Posted by pandy71

You again posting useless random information's totally unrelated to topic.
.

You can't handle the truth. Amiga's demise speaks for itself.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Yes, i agree - you will not stop flooding this thread with misleading, topic unrelated numbers, pictures, quotes etc.
Good luck with your bat and dead CBM corpse.
.

Your "misleading" attribution of me is misleading.

Originally Posted by pandy71

This depends only on CF clock.
CF in legacy code is still comparable to 68030 speed.

You again post useless random information that's unrelated to the topic.

Originally Posted by pandy71

It can be made to be like this and original Amiga was also not "out of the box" experience. Poor argumentation.

The A1000 wasn't a mass-production seller like the A500.

For the US market, 1985's $1,285 for A1000
$1626 in 1991.
$1676 in 1992.
$1725 in 1993

1987's $699 for A500
$837 in 1991.
$863 in 1992.
$888 in 1993.

A1200 entered the US market with $599 in Q4 1992 which is equivalent to $485.05 in 1987. Commodore went "Jack Tramiel" on its core customers.


For "kick the OS" Amiga games, the A500 is mostly out-of-the experience with a game console insert game media and play experience.


CD32's CD-ROM drive has insert a game media and play experience.

Modern-day game consoles like Xbox Series S and PS5 support a keyboard and mouse.

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about...ion-calculator

Originally Posted by pandy71

And still this is dead end as 68060 is no longer produced and it is outdated.

It's obvious 68060 is no longer produced and it is outdated.

Originally Posted by pandy71

Fine - provide this B2B documentation, TIA.

You again post useless random information that's unrelated to the topic.

I already posted an article on this issue.

Originally Posted by pandy71

I never put equality between 8514 and AGA - if you get it in that way you must be fool - all i've wrote is that 8514 is first time approach to settle graphic acceleration standard in PC market.

You again post useless random information that's unrelated to the topic.

[ Show youtube player ]
15:54 Body Blows
31:46 Gods
44:47 Pinball Fantasies
58:52 Prehistorik 2

286 @ 16 Mhz based PC with fast VGA plays A500 ported games just fine.

PC's Prehistorik 2 has a parallax background. Prehistorik 2 wasn't ported to the Amiga until recent times and with RTG support.

[ Show youtube player ]
VGA has hardware functions for 2D games. For this example, PC hardware has an 8086 CPU and OAK OTI VGA clone.
VGA is more than Atari ST's graphic chipset solution.

In the early 1990s, game developers used VGA hardware functions when they ported Amiga games into PC VGA. PC's faster CPU is used in place of Amiga's 3.5 Mhz Blitter.

Your 2D acceleration argument is pointless. What matters are the game results.

For 2D games, the A500 had the "power without the price" entry point from 1987 to 1990. Amiga's transition into the 32-bit 2.5D/3D gaming was a debacle. There's very little chance that the Amiga OCS's 2D game library will survive against SNES's strong +128 to 256 colors 2D game library while AGA's install base is small

The gaming PC's texture-mapped 2.5D/3D gaming dodged the SNES's strong 2D gaming steamroller.

[sandruzzo]

Let's take A1200 + fastram as a base machine. Has it been exploited 100%? This is the question...